Mechaniek: King of Tartessos by J C Compton ~ Blog Tour

Publisher: Independently published

Publication Date: 8th July 2022

Genre: post-apocalyptic sci-fi steampunk

Summary:

Power has changed hands in Toweren: after the assassination of King Viryankar and the arrest of

Rufus Doreabris, Nex Denisov has taken the throne through a coup, and the kingdom is at war

with the island kingdom of Tartessos. He and King Byryam of Tartessos both rely on a

personality cult and militias to secure their power and are racing to create hybrids from the DNA

of giant creatures found in the ruins of ancient civilizations.

Arnau Donovan transfers to the Royal School of Mechanics from a remote region at the age of

eighteen. The son of a lumberjack but a genius mechanic, he immediately attracts the jealousy of

his classmates. As he struggles with bullying and a conservative school board trying to make the

school more religious, he finds solace in his friendships with Alistair, Miro, a relative of the

king, and his teacher Goram, whom he falls in love with. But Nex Denisov is not ready to let his

former rival have such a genius by his side...

Review:

First off thank you to Pride book tours and  J C Compton for having me on this blog tour and sending me a copy of this book to review.
So once again I judged a book by its cover (I mean let's face it this book has a beautiful cover) and decided I had to be on the book tour for this one, the blurb backed up the cover's beauty and thankfully I got onto the tour.  Beautiful cover aside I really love how the author has written this, the switching between different points of view has a nice easy flow to it. I very quickly got invested in the characters and what's going on in their lives, so much so that I really can't wait to dive into the next book in the series.
I really felt for poor Arnau in his first few weeks in the school being bullied and treated so poorly but there were also parts where I was yelling at him to not make the bad choices(Don't leave Goram!)
I did feel the marriage was quite quick but then again soldiers were known to quickly marry their sweethearts just in case they died at war so I guess from that point of view it makes sense.
I loved the representation in this book the author has done a brilliant job of creating the characters but not making them archetypal versions of transgender/gay/etc. I've just really loved reading this book, and I'm definitely going back for more from J C Compton!

Krystina xx